SIX top US intelligence chiefs have told a government committee this week that they would not advise American citizens to use either products or services from Chinese companies Huawei and ZTT. The six included the heads of the NSA, FBI, and CIA, and the director of national intelligence, who initially advised the Senate Intelligence Committee... Read more »

SIX top US intelligence chiefs have told a government committee this week that they would not advise American citizens to use either products or services from Chinese companies Huawei and ZTT.

The six included the heads of the NSA, FBI, and CIA, and the director of national intelligence, who initially advised the Senate Intelligence Committee on Feb 13 that neither Huawei nor ZTT products should be used by public sector workers and anyone working for, or on behalf of, state agencies.

When asked by committee members whether they would extend this advice further, all six stated that they would not recommend that private US citizens use those products as well.

“This is a challenge I think that is only going to increase, not lessen over time for us. You need to look long and hard at companies like this,” said the NSA’s Chief, Michael Rogers.

FBI Director Chris Wray said: “We are deeply concerned about the risks of allowing any company or entity that is beholden to foreign governments that don’t share our values to gain positions of power inside our telecommunications network.”

“That provides the capacity to exert pressure or control over our telecommunications infrastructure. It provides the capacity to maliciously modify or steal information. It provides the capacity to conduct undetected espionage.”

I’m gonna tell you right now, the Huawei Mate 10 Pro is downright insane in both the looks and performance departments. Sitting in the airport spending some time with this bad boy, and I’m thoroughly impressed. Thank you, @huaweimobile for sending it! pic.twitter.com/A0CVixwDgG

Responding to the claims, a statement issued by Huawei said, “Huawei is aware of the range of US government activities seemingly aimed at inhibiting Huawei’s business in the US market. Huawei is trusted by governments and customers in 170 countries worldwide and poses no greater cybersecurity risk than any ICT vendor, sharing as we do common global supply chains and production capabilities.”

Like many Chinese enterprises, Huawei has been setting its sights on foreign markets, including the US. It initially entered a partnership with AT&T aimed at entering the US phone space that was ultimately called off.

Huawei CEO Richard Yu has, in the past, accused American network providers of depriving their customers of choice. It was, allegedly, American law enforcement agencies and legislators who persuaded AT&T to pull out of the deal.

At the committee hearing on Tuesday, the intelligence chiefs congratulated domestic telecoms companies for their ‘measured resistance’ to the influx of potential Chinese imports.

Huawei’s presence at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last month is perhaps not, in itself, proof of Huawei’s intent for the American market specifically; the show is an international event despite its venue this year. But flagship phones like the Mate 10 Pro announced at the event, will now only be sold online for US users. Because most US phone customers bundle their handsets with subscription services, this will severely limit the company’s phones’ uptake.

Early in January, Yu told the South China Morning Post by text, “We have been harmed again,” in response to the news of the ending of the AT&T deal.

The Huawei Mate 10 Pro has a 6-inch display and ships with Huawei’s artificial intelligence chip called the Kirin 970, the first of the company’s handsets to feature it. The Mate 10 is seen as a direct competitor to US domestic models like Apple’s iPhone and the Google Pixel.

Developed in collaboration with the Coalition for Better Ads, Chrome will automatically block advertisements that it considers to be intrusive to the user experience – on desktops and mobile devices.

Going forward, websites that don’t comply with new standards such as featuring ads that auto-play videos with sound, using full-page ads or annoying pop-ups, or forcing users to sit through a countdown before viewing the content, will face severe consequences.

If even a single ad violates the new standards, all ads on the site will be blocked, irrespective of whether or not they’re powered by Google’s advertising network or not.

According to a 2017 PageFair report, about 11 percent of the global internet population is blocking ads on the Internet, although 77 percent of US ad-blocker users said that they weren’t opposed to all ads, only the annoying ones.

I see two very different reactions to Chrome’s ad block feature. Most publishers hate it, but most non-publishers (everyone else) loves it. — As a media analyst, I understand the concern, but the reality is that we (the media) messed up by ignoring a very clear trend.

In the future, when publishers and advertisers spend money on Internet ads, they’ll get better traction, more responses, and honestly, more return on their investments.

High-quality advertisers, those that don’t use quick tactics to boost advertising and go for smart copy and tasteful content, will win the race in the long run. In fact, it’s what will get more eyeballs.

Similarly, publishers that enforce the quality and standards set by Google will not only be able to better engage with those who visit their website but also be forced to better manage monetization and user development efforts.

All in all, while Chrome will make a big and immediate impact on advertising, it won’t be as devastating for the industry as many might think.

Technology is here, now, and it's changing the world around us faster than ever before. Whether it's big data, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, there's disruption, chaos, and beauty, all at once. Here's what Accenture's Technology Vision 2018 has to say about that.

TECHNOLOGY is here, now, and it’s changing the world around us faster than ever before. Whether it’s big data, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, there’s disruption, chaos, and beauty, all at once.

C-suite executives, manager, and executives are trying to understand what the world will look like in the near future and how to tailor their business and strategies to keep ahead of the curve.

Accenture, through its new Technology Vision 2018 report, attempts to bring clarity and provide some direction to the industry.

Here’s what they have to say about the trends that are shaping life, society, and business:

Five technology trends to watch

Citizen AI, extended reality, data veracity, frictionless business, and the Internet of Thinking are five new technology trends that companies can leverage to build intelligent enterprises and create new opportunities for themselves.

Citizen AI

The consulting giant insists that AI is more than a program, that it’s becoming a citizen and must be ‘raised’ responsibly – calling it Citizen AI to make it more human-like.

The report found that 81 percent of executives believe that within the next two years, AI will work next to humans in their organizations, as a co-worker, collaborator and trusted advisor.

“As Artificial Intelligence expands further into society, the business accountability around raising a responsible and explainable AI will rapidly grow,” says the report.

Extended reality

Immersive experiences are changing how we connect with people and information, and thus, businesses must think about how to leverage AR, VR, and mixed reality to create this new “extended reality (XR)” to transform business and life.

As per the report, 80 percent of executives said they believe it will be important to leverage XR solutions to close the gap of physical distance when engaging with employees and customers.

“Extended reality is the first technology to ‘relocate’ people in time and space, and we are here for it. As immersive experiences spread across industries, the fundamental changes to enterprise and society are clear: the importance of place is disappearing,” says the report.

Data is the lifeblood of the intelligent enterprise. Whether you consider urban infrastructure, manufacturing, or healthcare, the global economy depends on live and accurate information to run.

Therefore, a vulnerability around unverified information is a serious concern for businesses and needs to be addressed. Confidence in the integrity of a company’s data and insights is critical to business.

Two insights that came out of the Accenture report that built the premise for data veracity are:

Seventy-nine percent of executives agree that organizations are basing their most critical systems and strategies on data, yet many have not invested in the capabilities to verify the truth within it, and yet

Eighty-two percent of executives reported that their organizations are increasingly using data to drive critical and automated decision-making, at an unprecedented scale.

“The time is now to bet big on advances in data-hungry technologies. Yet without an accompanying push for data veracity, these investments could easily become a losing bet,” says the report.

Frictionless business

Technology-driven partnerships help drive growth in today’s digital economy, however, legacy business systems weren’t built to support these tech-driven partnerships at scale.

“Staying competitive depends on building strong and plentiful partnerships, and creating a powerful digital ecosystem. As each company’s portfolio of partnerships grows, this scale of connections means reimagining the way the business transacts with others, and blockchain is a major key to creating, scaling, and managing those relationships,” says the report.

Obviously, internal transformations and adoption of new technologies are critical in order for companies to get the most out of these partnerships and stay in the game.

The Internet of Thinking is about creating intelligent distributed systems. And although our physical world is transforming into intelligent environments, existing IT architectures aren’t designed to support ‘intelligence everywhere’.

A balance of cloud and edge computing and a renewed focus on hardware will empower companies to build the Internet of Thinking. In fact, 83 percent of executives surveyed agreed that edge architecture will speed the maturity of many technologies.

At the end of the day, the report acknowledges that leading companies are working hard to improve the way we live. They’re creating innovative new products and services that will become indispensable in the future.

The report suggests that business is getting personal and that leaders must shift their mindsets and business models to focus on forging strong, trusted relationships with partners, customers, employees, governments, and more.

Accenture Chief Technology & Innovation Officer Paul Daugherty said:

There’s a new obligation— and a new opportunity— for companies to engage with people differently.

Accenture believes that business is getting personal and that leaders must shift their mindsets and business models to focus on forging strong, trusted relationships with partners, customers, employees, governments, and more. The more that businesses do to build technology into their processes and their ecosystem, the better it will be.

JAPAN has been quick to accept cryptocurrencies, and unlike its peers in Asia such as China, South Korea, and India, the country has been liberal in its adoption in many respects.

However, a recent heist at cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck caused citizens to lose US$530 million and has had devastating repercussions for the company, stakeholders, and the industry itself.

Further, the nation’s revised Payment Services Act, which was implemented in April 2017 stipulated that virtual currency marketplace operators must register themselves and form a voluntary self-regulatory organization.

But, the cryptocurrency industry already had two industry groups, the Japan Cryptocurrency Business Association (JCBA) and the Japan Blockchain Association (JBA).

Hence, the Financial Services Agency (FSA) insisted on a merger in order to create an apex organization to serve as the self-regulatory body for the industry.

In light of the direction by the FSA and the recent attach on Coincheck, the two cryptocurrency industry groups have agreed to come together and establish a stronger entity that will regulate its members and their activities.

This new organization will have one single mission: to regain (and keep) the trust of the public.

The two industry groups, as per reports in the Nikkei Asian Review, will merge to form a new entity on the 1st of April, 2018.

Chairman of JCBA Taizen Okuyama and JBA Representative Director Yuzo Kano are expected to take up the position of Chairman and Vice Chairman respectively, in the new organization.

The first order of business for the merged organization will be to tackle the creation of self-imposed rules to protect client assets, troubleshoot system errors and risks, implement advertising guidelines, and bring in measures to avoid insider trading.

Once launched, the new body will have to be approved by the country’s FSA in order to gain the power to set penalties for breaches of its self-imposed rules.

FACEBOOK today announced it will be allowing certain businesses to post to Community Help, where they can offer aid during a crisis.

The Community Help feature was introduced last February, in a bid to allow users to find and provide help during a crisis. In September, the social media giant also launched Crisis Response, a place where people could access safety checks, community help, as well as articles and videos relating to an ongoing crisis.

And now, Facebook has announced changes to the Community Help feature which will allow businesses and organizations to post on the forum, rather than just individuals.

“Enabling organizations and businesses to post in Community Help will give them a new way to reach communities impacted by crises,” Facebook said in its announcement.

“For example, they might post about helping people find everything from free transportation to supplies and connecting volunteers with organizations that need help.”

The platforms Community Help feature has been used during over 500 global crises including Hurricane Harvey, flooding in Mumbai and Brazil, and the attack in Barcelona. Through the help of over 750,000 posts, comments and messages, individuals around the world have been able to access and organize volunteer opportunities, provide emergency shelter, food, and clothing.

By now allowing businesses to post on the page, more organized help can be provided during critical times when communities need it most.

According to a Facebook spokesman, businesses must have a verified page in order to post in Community relief, and promotional content will be strictly prohibited.

Businesses and organizations such as Feeding America, Direct Relief, Lyft, and Save the Children are among the first to trial the new feature. Facebook says it will become available to more groups in the coming weeks.

“From our years of experience across the nation supporting disaster recovery and improving disaster readiness, we know how important it is to connect people on the ground with resources and information in an expedient manner. We believe this tool could be instrumental in assisting local or nearby food banks in providing much needed food to people who have been displaced.”

Facebook’s new update is another way in which the platform is being utilized to build stronger communities for a greater social good. Last year the social network also rolled out tools to enable users in India to begin signing up to be blood donors.

Now, more than four million people have signed up to become a donor in India.

“In addition to enabling people in need to connect to blood donors, our tools also allow organizations to connect to donors more efficiently. Hospitals, blood banks and non-profits can create voluntary blood donation events on Facebook, and nearby donors are notified of the opportunities to donate blood,” says Naomi Gleit, Vice President of Facebook’s Social Good, a team specially dedicated to good social causes.

The Social Good team was created with the aim of building new Facebook products that non-profits and other charitable organizations can leverage to educate supporters, increase advocacy, and connect people with issues they care about.

“At Facebook, our goal is to make the world more open and connected,’’ the company wrote in its online tutorial guide about the social good initiative.

IT seems like Snap Inc is in a race to win back digital celebrities- otherwise known as influencers- from their Facebook-owned rival, Instagram.

Snap plan to give tens of thousands of influencers with large audiences on the platform information about their content. For instance, how often users are viewing their Snapchat stories, the time spent watching them, and demographic details about their audience, the company announced Wednesday.

IT SEEMS like Snap Inc is in a race to win back digital celebrities, otherwise known as influencers, from their Facebook-owned rival, Instagram.

Snap plans to give information about content and viewership to tens of thousands of influencers with large audiences on the platform. This includes, how often users are viewing their Snapchat stories, the time spent watching them, and demographic details about their audience, the company announced on Wednesday.

Snapchat is flipping on analytics for verified accounts for the first time today. (hello YouTubers and Instagram celebs!) You get total views, time spent viewing stories, and other audience demo stats. Next step is likely (?) some sort rev share system for video ads. pic.twitter.com/L7vU9lxBUH

An increasing amount of digital influencers turned to Snapchat’s rival Instagram Stories, due to barriers around monetizing content on the app, as a result of the lack of data provided by Snap.

Snap’s plans to provide more information to its content creators is even more necessary since the platform is redesigning its app to separate public media posts from content posted by friends. This differs from Facebook and Instagram, which mixes updates from friends with posts from public figures.

Thus, the separation on Snapchat means that the public media content must be engaging and compelling enough for snap-users to swipe to a different section of the application on their own.

With Instagram, businesses and influencers can view valuable analytics regarding their content including the number of views, how many people have saved a post, and what time of day they gain the most engagement.

According to Bloomberg, in the fourth quarter, influencers were increasingly using Instagram due to the monetization opportunities available through branded content. Brands are more likely to sponsor campaigns if they can view analytics and measure how well the campaigns are going.

With the new Snap analytics tools, creators will be able to show their total reach to secure sponsored content deals, refine their posts to better connect with their audience, as well as compare their following to that on other platforms.

This is a big step for Snap, who, in the past, have not done much to encourage online creators on the platform. But late last year, Snap CEO, Evan Spiegel announced that the company would be building monetization and distribution options to encourage creators to continue to use the app.

Wall Street investors have regained hope in the app with the recent release of Snapchat’s fourth quarter of 2017 report. The company announced a growth in users in the last quarter (8.9 million), following several quarters of declining user growth rates.

Though these Chinese New Year traditions largely remain the same, even this ancient celebration is not immune to the digital transformation that is over-taking almost every industry today.
The rise of technology is impacting many features of CNY, including gift-giving, travel, food, and even relationships.

THE celebration of the Chinese New Year (CNY) is a tradition almost as old as China itself. The origin of the festival can be traced back to about 3500 years ago, where people would wear red, eat dumplings, and exchange monetary gifts to ward off evil spirits.

But in more recent years, with the proliferation of smartphones, there has been a new spin on this tradition.

WeChat, the social networking and messaging app from Chinese Internet giant, Tencent Holdings, have launched a feature that allows users to digitally send envelopes to loved ones.

Givers must first link their bank accounts to the app, then they can send specified amounts of money to their WeChat contacts along with personalized messages. They can even put a fun twist on it and put the cash up for grabs in chat rooms full of friends.

Receivers can then transfer the funds into their own bank accounts.

Dinner

Don’t fancy spending CNY cooking in the kitchen? There are apps for that | Source: Shutterstock

Food is an inseparable part of CNY celebrations. The New Year’s Eve dinner, or reunion dinner, is an extremely important occasion for the Chinese. Spring rolls, dumplings, noodles, and steamed fish are among the delicious dishes enjoyed by family and friends.

And now, the New Year’s feast can be booked through a food delivery app, meaning less time in the kitchen and more time spent with loved ones.

With a click of a button, users can add items to their basket and have them delivered the next day.

Relationships

During CNY, some singles resort to hiring fake girlfriends and boyfriends to appease their parents | Source: Shutterstock

A vestige of old China that is still present today is the pressure on young people to find a suitable husband or wife before turning 30. This pressure is particularly immense for women, who are expected to focus on marriage over their careers.

For those wanting to get their parents off their backs, there are various websites and apps available which offer the opportunity to rent-a-partner for a day.

Travel

Every year, millions of Chinese cram into trains to make the journey home to their loved ones. This crowded and often unpleasant experience is rapidly being transformed by China’s push towards a world of high-speed rail.

The development of bullet trains, with a top speed of 250kmph, is cutting travel time by 75 percent compared to regular trains.

“These lines provide ample capacity during peak travel periods such as the Lunar New Year and in other times can stimulate growth in tourism and other businesses in the service sector in western China.”

As well as cutting down journey time, technology is being used to ease other aspects of travel such as ticket buying and payment.

With a massive crowd of population all wanting to travel, it can be tough to get your hands on tickets. An app called Goatie Guanjia automatically monitors and ‘grabs’ tickets when they become available, saving you the trouble of waiting around.

Last but not the least, facial recognition software provided by Baidu Inc is being tested as a means of verification for passengers to board their flights, with the aim of making the process more efficient.

Alas, CNY, like the country, is headed towards a trasnformation led by technology.

EXISTING enterprise resource planning (ERP) software has a particular linear quality to it. Business has always talked about a customer “journey” and this has led to a concept of a chronological movement of an item or service’s through the business –inquiry through to invoice. This transactional approach was reflected in the first ERP systems, as... Read more »

EXISTING enterprise resource planning (ERP) software has a particular linear quality to it. Business has always talked about a customer “journey” and this has led to a concept of a chronological movement of an item or service’s through the business –inquiry through to invoice.

This transactional approach was reflected in the first ERP systems, as far back as the 1990s from, for instance, JD Edwards, Oracle or Baan, where the systems’ roots in MRP (manufacturing resource planning) were clearly apparent.

But thanks at least in part to the proliferation of technology that now plays such an intrinsic part in our lives, for an enterprise to really thrive today, it needs to act with several business models running concurrently. Demands on the enterprise which ten years ago would have seemed extraordinary are every day, now.

Today’s customers’ expectations of everything-as-a-service (XaaS) means that the organization supplying goods or services to consumers and other businesses alike needs to be able to offer products in a subscription model, on an annual stipend basis, as a one-off purchase, as a purchase with optional add-ons, or, any combination of those! It’s what customers, partners, and suppliers expect, and it’s what the enterprise needs to provide.

This situation brings us back to the failings of old-school ERP software. Although the transactional, chronological basis for some commercial activity needs preserving (order – produce – invoice – receive payment – repeat), a good ERP has to reflect the adjustment that its users have to make.

CRMs such as Salesforce are good – very good – at marketing, sales, and services, but are unable to extend customer service levels to the next plateau. Today’s enterprise needs to add, to a system such as Salesforce, the ability to cope with finances (“what’s this charge on my account?”), services (“where are we in the project to date?”) and the supply chain (“when is the shipment due at our distribution center?”).

The next challenge which comes from the demand for different (and ever-changing) parallel business model implementation is the problem of time and talent management. If an organization is to change to offer a new service to its clients, how will that be handled?

Silo-ed HR systems have been employed in the past, but isn’t it a better idea to find an ERP which will spot a customer-driven demand for change, predict its possibilities and then supply the necessary data to allow rapid on-boarding and propose a training schedule? A modern ERP should take these processes in its stride.

A point briefly touched upon in the paragraph above is also a pointer to the capabilities of the ERP software of the future. Where business intelligence has, like HR systems, been a system whose data exists in a separate silo, by integrating BI, and even artificial intelligence (AI) into the ERP, the fluency of operations is increased.

A further challenge which will make CTOs and operations specialists across the enterprise question the suitability of their legacy choices, is the arrival (rather late in the day – typical of governmental bodies’ glacial speeds) of the need to comply with regulations and legislation.

Businesses operating in the US, even in part, need to know about and cope with ASC 606, among a plethora of other national, state and city-level edicts, while enterprises wishing to hold data on but one European supplier, partner or customer needs to be GDPR-compliant. Similarly, businesses with dealings in APAC and especially Australia and New Zealand need be mindful of data breach notification strictures, among others.

Ideally, enterprises are looking for ERP systems which are all things to all users, and clearly, this is never going to be an obtainable goal: you can’t please all the people all the time.

But by using a powerful ERP/CRM which touches every aspect of the enterprise and the customer experience, plus handles suppliers, partners, and employees, and allows customers to interact with the enterprise in a variety of ways (multiple business models required!), the technologically-empowered organization can progress and adapt.

The underlying topology of the available systems is varying: some suppliers offer a cloud-only model, others a hybrid of in-house and/or public cloud implementation. While this particular aspect is of key concern to CTOs especially, the take-homes should be born in mind: systems need to be agile, mobile, easy to use, powerful and as far as possible, be all-encompassing to a degree that will allow rapid change as customers or other business aspects demand.

Here are four suppliers which we at Tech Wire Asia believe could hold the key to the next generation of ERP software solutions, which will empower the next generation of enterprise.

Some suppliers will require the scrapping of legacy systems to make way for their solution. Others will integrate with existing technology, others act as a greater or lesser system’s add-on or extension. No single solution will suit all comers, of course, but with some judicious research, the next ERP system to take your business to the next level may well be among the following:

The new services economy has arrived

The era of static business models is over. The pace of change is now relentless. Today’s customers—in B2C and B2B—expect everything as a service. In response, every business is becoming a services business, blending revenue streams from products, subscriptions, and a wide variety of services.

In this new services economy, speed is the new currency. The businesses that thrive will be those that can swiftly identify new opportunities and adapt to change.

#1 Cloud ERP for the new services economy

FinancialForce is the leading cloud ERP for the new services economy. The only Leader in the G2 Crowd Grid for Professional Services Automation and the #1 ERP on the Salesforce platform, FinancialForce unifies data across the enterprise in real-time, enabling companies to rapidly evolve their business models with customers at the center.

How FinancialForce helps businesses thrive in the new services economy

FinancialForce offers business model agility to help you run your business in entirely new ways and create a flexible, ever-evolving business model; one that adapts to changes in technology, the competitive landscape, and customer expectations.

You can benefit from time and talent optimization to align your business around what matters and easily and quickly deploy resources in the most efficient manner possible.

With predictive insights you can guide your business in the right direction using our predictive intelligence to quickly and securely leverage the wisdom of the crowd to optimize your business outcomes based on leading indicators vs lagging indicators.

Infor’s cloud revenues have grown to 65 percent of its total licensing revenue and numbers around 70 million cloud users from its 8,500 customers.

The company’s growth has been supported by an alliance it developed with AWS four years ago. Amazon’s position as the world’s largest supplier of cloud computing has certainly aided Infor’s profile, helping its customers develop reassurance about the uptime and availability of hosted services.

Infor’s software allows a highly bespoke product to be created on industrial scales. The company’s work with Ferrari has enabled the Italian supercar manufacturer to produce every car specific to a customer’s requirements. The overheads of this provision before Infor’s systems’ integration would have been untenable.

The customization options available for Infor’s cloud-based services were commented on by James Hannay, VP United Kingdom & Ireland and Benelux, who said at an industry event, last year:

“We are now riding this wave of demand for cloud. Even the most heavily customized are looking for us to help them move to cloud.”

Despite the concerns of various international competition overseers, Oracle’s acquisition of NetSuite cemented the two companies’ relationship. Larry Ellison of Oracle owns over 40 percent of NetSuite stock, and the companies have always worked closely – the symbiosis between the two was always at least partly inevitable.

NetSuite/Oracle’s market position in the ERP space now boasts 40 thousand customers worldwide. Oracle’s database background is reflected in the technical underpinnings of NetSuite, with a unified data model underpinning all areas of the company’s offerings, from HR to Finance, to back office functions.

NetSuite’s cloud-based interface allows information to be presented on any platform, from the desktop through to connected smartphone – mobile working in today’s connected age has to be a given, for any ERP supplier to be taken seriously.

As a cloud application, it is claimed that as the core system updates, discreet customer configurations and customizations are not affected, as they exist in a discrete layer above the central data system. This means that even customized solutions will not “break” at major update points.

Netsuite/Oracle’s solutions are suitable for businesses of all types; currently, marketing efforts are aimed largely at small to medium businesses. The company’s production management offering, for instance, offers software oversight and management of sales orders to work order processing, routing & scheduling, and product costings.

And the company’s global underpinnings ensure that currency manipulation, timezones and localization according to specific, localized requirements are baked into the offering’s DNA.

Industrial and Financial Systems (IFS) operates two development centers in addition to the one in its native Sweden, in Poland and Sri Lanka. The company has multiple offices across the world and has served industry since the mid 1980’s.

The company’s software ERP figures largely in aerospace and defense industries as well as oil and gas verticals. If a specialism were to be named for IFS’s expertise, it would probably be manufacturing and asset-based industries.

IFS Applications cover almost every aspect of the modern enterprise – the company’s solutions are also held to be suitable for service industries too – including, where appropriate, engineering management, manufacturing, and supply chain functions.

Project planning for any industry is also covered, and the omnipresent need for HR management, accountancy, business intelligence and process modeling is also covered.

IFS’s solutions form a standalone product suite, although there is a high degree of configuration available, which allows system implementation with legacy systems from existing ERPs, right down to humble FTP file-sharing services.

There is also an extensive suite of asset management capability, including fleet management apps, maintenance and B2B contract management for equipment leasing and tracking.

]]>http://techwireasia.com/2018/02/users-benefit-next-gen-erp-solutions/feed/0Taking Salesforce to the next level up with FinancialForcehttp://techwireasia.com/2018/02/taking-salesforce-next-level-financialforce/
http://techwireasia.com/2018/02/taking-salesforce-next-level-financialforce/#respondThu, 15 Feb 2018 16:54:20 +0000http://techwireasia.com/?p=176399

The new services economy is flourishing. It’s not just software, consultants, movies, and music being offered as a service — it’s bacon, pets, designer handbags, even sports cars. Today, more and more companies are exploring service-based business models (e.g. subscriptions, professional services, and usage-based billing) to supplement traditional product sales and keep pace with the... Read more »

The new services economy is flourishing. It’s not just software, consultants, movies, and music being offered as a service — it’s bacon, pets, designer handbags, even sports cars.

Today, more and more companies are exploring service-based business models (e.g. subscriptions, professional services, and usage-based billing) to supplement traditional product sales and keep pace with the relentless change of business. This is not only creating a multitude of revenue streams and a sharpened focus on customer retention, it’s exposing weaknesses in static business models and the reliance on transactional, linear processes for operations.

According to a 2017 survey from CFO Research and FinancialForce, 71 percent of CFOs reported that more than half of their revenue already comes from services, and nearly a third stated that all their companies’ revenues are service-related. But as of now, many companies have yet to make the necessary changes in their infrastructure with just one in five respondents (17 percent) saying their company’s “operational and technology infrastructure” could handle “any increase in service-related revenues.”

The conclusion: organizations are having to look closely at the ERP systems they use to run their business.

Company success is dependent on customer success

The growing importance of subscription renewals and multiple business models makes it critical that organizations become more engaged in supporting and driving customer satisfaction. The businesses to thrive will be those with internal systems and processes that help them serve customers with instant answers, immediate resolutions, and positive experiences at every turn. They should be able to quickly adopt unlimited business models, optimize for dynamic service delivery, and act on business signals

Achieving that will require a nimble, customer-centric ERP system—exactly the kind of system offered by FinancialForce, a San Francisco-based company and long-time partner of Salesforce. FinancialForce is a cloud ERP solution built on the Salesforce platform, one that seamlessly connects with the cloud giant’s world-leading CRM. The single-cloud ERP solution unifies data across the enterprise in real-time, enabling companies to rapidly evolve their business models with customers at the center.

As it is today, most companies narrowly confine customer experience to the front-office within sales, service and marketing domains — building customer-centric strategies that go only halfway. FinancialForce ERP connects back-office functions, namely billing, receivables, and product/service delivery to the front-office (CRM) in order to gain a comprehensive view of every customer and a master customer record. Every conversation, every transaction, every request—it’s all accessible to all customer-facing staff. So anytime a customer has a question or issue that needs resolving, the organization can swiftly respond.

Business Agility

Financial management will be simplified as well. Because organizations have fundamentally changed how they sell, implement, monetize, account for, and serve customers, the need for modern, services-centric systems has become elevated.

The FinancialForce ERP system allows organizations to view, manage, and centralize multiple revenue streams, easily add new business models, and transition to emerging regulations (e.g. ASC 606, IFRS 15) without disrupting core business processes. All the revenue management and billing functions are automated, helping organizations execute profitably and efficiently recognize revenue sooner. With each of these components in place, organizations are also able to redefine their business and get real-time access core metrics around forecasting, profitability, and customer success.

With an extensive knowledge of customer needs, data, and the right systems in place, FinancialForce ERP is helping to steer businesses in a strategically informed and positive direction, to keep their customers happy, and capitalize on all that the new services economy has to offer.

#1 Cloud ERP for the new services economy

FinancialForce is the leading cloud ERP for the new services economy. The only Leader in the G2 Crowd Grid for Professional Services Automation and the #1 ERP on the Salesforce platform, FinancialForce unifies data across the enterprise in real-time, enabling companies to rapidly evolve their business models with customers at the center.

TWO of the giants of the cloud backup world have come together to offer the next generation of cloud application, storage & data providers, a higher level of security and peace of mind.

Datos IO, which attracted investors like NetApp and Cisco in a funding round last year, has been purchased by Rubrik, itself having raised US$292 million from investors like Greylock and American sports star Kevin Durant.

NoSQL is a database schema widely adopted by cloud storage and processing concerns such as Amazon AWS. It is particularly compelling in large deployments across multiple machine instances where relational databases often struggle to scale.

NoSQL databases also provide faster results in certain circumstances compared to their relational cousins, and there are fundamental differences: for instance, tables cannot be joined on the fly in higher level language queries familiar to database admins.

Datos IO had a value of around US$47 million at the time of acquisition and will continue to be led by its Founder and CEO Tarun Thakur, although it will adopt a new name of Rubrik Datos IO.

Datos IO’s services include the backup and recovery of artificial intelligence/machine learning data platforms, e-commerce, and the Internet of things deployments.

It therefore neatly bridges a gap for Rubrik which has specialized in providing backup services for companies transitioning from in-house servers to the cloud, and any hybrid provisions in the interim. Datos IO is both a newer, younger business and one that is more firmly rooted in cloud technologies.

“As enterprises adopt NoSQL cloud databases to undertake digital transformation and AI initiatives, the need to manage and recover applications and data is becoming top of mind,” said Rubrik’s Sinha in a statement.

“We are excited to have Datos IO join the Rubrik family to accelerate innovation in how enterprises manage and recover this modern application stack,” added Sinha.

Thakur said in a statement:

“We founded Datos IO with a vision of building a next-generation data management platform for cloud-native data sources to ensure elasticity, orchestration and data mobility. Datos IO delivers critical backup and recovery capabilities for cloud-native applications and databases. Rubrik and Datos IO share a common vision of cloud data management and are committed to helping customers on their digital transformation journey.”